WASHK helped our children settle in Hong Kong

Aoba, Takuto and Wakaba are originally from Japan, and travelled with family to Bangkok and Singapore, prior to living in Hong Kong. They joined WASHK in Y8, Y5 and Y2 in 2021, after successfully completing a fully online remote assessment.

（The story was originally published on https://www.was.edu.hk/en/NewsDetail?newsId=1127 ）

Our children left Japan seven years ago and followed us to various countries due to my work. They attended international schools in Bangkok and Singapore, and now Hong Kong.

Before we arrived here, we already knew of Wycombe Abbey Hong Kong because my former colleague works there. We visited the brand-new campus and were impressed that WASHK was a UK curriculum school that served predominantly local families (with about 30% of non-Chinese speaking students). We want our children to go to a school where they can experience the real Hong Kong, to understand the local culture, and learn Chinese whilst they are here.

?We did thorough due diligence on the school before committing, and had conversations with the Headmaster, Mr. Tuckett, as well. We liked his approach to education, the curriculum and felt the teaching staff were very international, friendly, at the same time can be firm and willing to discipline students if needed.

Our children fell into each of the respective Key Stages of the school, Aoba (eldest sister) was in Key Stage 3, Takuto (younger brother) in Key Stage 2, and Wakaba (youngest sister) in Key Stage 1. We have a privileged view across all the Key Stages, and saw clear distinctions between them, which gave us a lot of confidence as parents.

For our youngest, who is in Year 2, her class teacher, Mrs. Tan, is kind, always has time to listen and made Wakaba feel really safe. Wakaba soon felt confident and, in our mind, the most important thing about a child at her age was to enjoy going to school.

Wakaba

For Takuto who is in Year 5, the atmosphere of the classroom is different, it’s more about encouraging students to work together, to ask questions, try figuring out answers by themselves, and his class teacher, Mr. Mitchell sets a higher bar of academic standards compared to Key Stage 1.?

In fact, we can say with first-hand knowledge that WASHK as a school sets a higher academic standard compared to the other schools our children attended in the past. His class teacher really knows Takuto well and uses his interest to drive him forward.

Mr. Mitchell on Takuto:

“Takuto is an enthusiastic, sociable student who lives for baseball. He has a competitive spirit and always gets excited when activities are framed as games or competitions. He is a caring and loyal friend and is universally liked by his peers. When he arrived at Wycombe Abbey, he was initially quite shy and reluctant to speak in front of the class. Now he is always first to raise his hand to answer questions or present his work to his classmates.”

Takuto in the middle

For Aoba, who is thirteen and joined the school’s Year 8, everything is dialed up another notch. There are many specialist teachers and classes are conducted in small groups, streamed by capabilities. We really like the small class size here, Aoba made friends quickly from all backgrounds.

Aoba

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In contrast to their previous international school experience, the class teachers are stricter. For Aoba, her class teacher Mr. Parr always encourages Aoba to set an example for the rest of the school. We felt Aoba began to take real ownership of her learning here, and we saw the school working as a team to help Aoba discover, and reach her potential, without going beyond the limit. The teachers here really understand our children and motivate them to bridge the gap between their current capabilities, and their potential.

Mr. Parr, class teacher to Aoba:

“When she joined us in August 2021, she appeared to be a quiet girl who struggled to speak up and express herself. The transformation she has made over the last year has been wonderful to see, as she has grown and grown in confidence in herself and her own abilities. She is now a leading voice in every class discussion, offering insightful inputs one second, and a helping hand to lower ability pupils the next."

Due to moving between countries, they find some academic subjects a slight stretch (e.g., Maths), however, our children tell us they really like studying at WASHK, especially for language, art and drama subjects. WASHK helped anchored our children into Hong Kong, thanks to the full school day and extensive after school activities. In summary, the school took our children’s education responsibilities off our shoulders.

One day we will return to Japan, and our kids will need to adapt again. We feel WASHK is preparing them well for wherever they go. In fact, Mr. Tuckett has been very helpful from day one in advising us where Aoba should go next. We are very happy she will be heading to another international school in Hong Kong, where the school and classes are bigger. We believe Aoba is ready to step into the bigger arena this September, and we credit WASHK for helping he prepare herself.

We will definitely recommend WASHK to any friends moving to Hong Kong, especially for younger children, as they will benefit from many years here.